


Dangerous Curves

by GeorgieGirl8



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Fast Cars, Fluff, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-16 04:45:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14804615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeorgieGirl8/pseuds/GeorgieGirl8
Summary: Fast cars, cheap thrills, hot nights, divided loyalties.Welcome to Riverdale's dangerous illegal street racing scene.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. It's me again. 
> 
> As usual, I have no idea what I'm doing. I found aspects of the premise of 2x06 interesting, I guess. And while this little AU has nothing to do with that episode beyond sharing a similar setting, the idea just got in my head and wouldn't leave me alone. So here we are.
> 
> If you enjoy it, I'd love to hear from you!

“Crescent wrench.”

“Betty.”

“Crescent wrench.”

“Look at me, will you?”

The blonde girl – who had grease smeared on one cheek – stopped and braced her hands on the front of the car, jaw set. Her green eyes, when they finally deigned to look up at him, were dull with anger. “I’m here, aren’t I?” She spread her hands out, gesturing at the engine.

“Yeah, Betty – and I’m trying to thank you if you’d just listen.” His voice was conciliatory, but edgy, gratitude sparring with impatience in his brain.  

“I’m here,” she snapped, talking over the end of his sentence, agitated. “Again,” she added, looking around them, “in an abandoned barn. In the middle of nowhere. In the middle of the damn night.”

The only light, a naked bulb in a cage hanging off the hood, cast a harsh glow on one side of her face, throwing deep shadows onto the other.

“Betty—” his eyes flashed as he leaned forward, trying to make her listen. “Thank you,” he said firmly, almost angrily.

She sighed, shaking her head with an ironic laugh. She opened her mouth and closed it again. Finally, “crescent wrench,” she repeated wearily, holding out a hand.

Shoulders rounding, exasperated, he struck her palm with the tool. “You know I appreciate this,” he told her, biting his lips. He’d thrown his jacket across the open driver’s-side window, but inside this barn, even at 1:30 in the morning, the air was still hot enough to coat his forehead and the back of his neck in sweat.

“It’s the car,” she muttered, leaning into the engine compartment, arms flexed. “You know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for this goddamned car.”

“Yeah, I know that,” he said, looking down at his All-Stars.

“Like… why would I take such stupid risks?” she all but spit, her body jerking with the effort it took to do whatever it was she was doing in there. He wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to herself. He didn’t know a ton about fixing cars, but he could drive them better – faster, more recklessly – than almost anyone in Riverdale. Or Greendale, for that matter.

“I get it,” he said quietly, and chanced a look in her direction. Her head was fully under the hood, her back and shoulder muscles straining under her thin white shirt, the soft shape of her hips hugged by jeans so tight he couldn’t imagine how she put them on. A blue rag was stuffed into one of her back pockets.

“But this car…” she laughed through her nose, derisively. “You don’t deserve this car,” she said, still working, “the way you drive it. You do stupid things with this car. Things this car was not meant to do.”

Determined as he was not to provoke her, he couldn’t bite his tongue any longer. “That’s what this _is_ , Betty—” he said through gritted teeth, trying to keep his voice even. “That’s the _reason_ I have this car. For racing. You know that.”

She pulled her head out to look at him. “One day,” she said, slowly, like she thinks maybe he’ll have a hard time understanding, her eyes narrow, “you’re going to push this car past where I can fix it. I come out here, every time you ask, and all I can do is try to put it back together enough for you to take it out and do it all over again.”

They looked at each other, the air between them crackling like the moment right before a summer storm.

“You know that’s all I’m asking for,” he said, crossing his arms uncomfortably, his eyes darting down.

She ran the back of her free hand over her brow, looking at him like she was trying to solve a problem. Unsettled by her silence, he met her gaze. “Is it?” she asked, “really?” She set the wrench down on the engine case, reached back for the rag, and balled it up between her hands, wiping away what she could of the grease as she closed the distance between them with small steps. “You sure about that?” she challenged him, frowning, standing close enough now to feel his breath on her face, her knuckles, still enfolding the rag, brushing against his stomach.

He closed his eyes for a moment, nostrils flaring. “Yes,” he said, his voice strained.

She looked up at him, defiant. “Because I don’t believe you,” she said, but before the last syllable was all the way out of her mouth, he grabbed her waist, spun her around, and pushed her against the side of the car. She reached out to catch herself and gasped as one of his hands reached across her chest to clutch roughly at her breast and the other fanned teasingly over her belly, fingertips just inside the waistband of her jeans, his body pressed into the contours of her back.

“Jug,” she breathed, her hands thrown up on the car, tossing her head to the side as he buried his face in her neck.

“Stop talking,” he ordered, his breath hot on her earlobe. She felt his teeth scrape the skin behind her ear as he latched onto the side of her neck, sucking almost hard enough to leave a mark. She gasped and arched her back, her ponytail falling across his face.

Hardly able to contain himself, he pulled her hips back into him with the hand resting on her lower belly, rubbing his swelling arousal against the seam of her pants. She grabbed his hand suddenly and pushed his fingers lower, over her jeans, into the space between her legs, writhing against them, moaning softly.

“You like that,” he growled, sliding his other hand up, off her breast, to curl around the side of her neck, his forearm pulling her torso flush against him.

“Shut up,” she replied; then, her breath hitching, “yeah, oh—” she whimpered as she felt his hand shimmy into her jeans and rub her through the cotton of her panties. “More,” she whined. Her eyes fluttering closed, she felt him grin against the back of her neck as his fingers snuck under the elastic to slip between her slick folds. “Oh,” she breathed, her voice suddenly sounding far away, “yeah, just like that.”

A little corner of his brain considered how impossible it seemed, given how tightly the denim wrapped around her curves, that his hand would find any room at all to move inside those jeans. And yet, his middle and index fingers slid easily into that secret, slippery place at her core, one on either side of the sensitive nub, stroking up and down with the soft, quick moves he’d learned she liked.

“Oh— oh God, Juggie— don’t stop,” she urged, her body bucking and twisting, her breathing loud and laboured as she lost herself inside her pleasure.   

“Jesus, Betty—” he groaned, moving his hand in time with her gasping breaths, which came faster and faster now, pitching higher and higher until her body arched and stiffened, her legs flexing and trembling, his name forcing its way out of her mouth in a guttural cry.

He pulled his hands away from her body and stepped back. She turned around to lean against the car, flushed and breathless, and they looked at each other. He wondered for what seemed like the hundredth time what was supposed to happen now.

“You’re—” she began, her eyes raking over his body, gesturing at the front of his pants with an unspoken question.

“It’s fine,” he said, waving a hand dismissively and turning away.

For a long moment, their breathing was the only noise in the barn.

“I can’t keep doing this,” she said, her voice quiet, unsteady. “Any of this.”

He hesitated. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard her say those words. “I know,” he replied.

\---

He took a long, hard sip of the chocolate milkshake through the straw, then another, and another, already dipping a handful of fries in ketchup.

“Slow down, Jug, Jesus – at least make it to 19 before you have that massive heart attack.” Reggie was sitting sideways in the booth, his posture reflecting a morbid curiosity about Jughead’s eating habits. He couldn’t look, but he couldn’t look away either.

“I’m an emotional eater,” he replied sheepishly, picking up the second of the three hamburgers on his plate and taking an impossibly large bite.

“I can’t believe all this food doesn’t slow you down,” Reggie observed, a slow smile spreading across his face. “It’s incredible.”

Jughead swallowed, one eyebrow cocked sardonically. “I drive a car, Reg. I’m not an athlete.”

“Still.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe that grease lubricates your reflexes or something? Shit, I don’t know.”

Letting himself smile at the mental image, “yeah,” Jughead agreed, “maybe that’s it.”

“Hey, you’ve been on fire lately,” Reggie enthused, trying to keep his voice low and swiveling his head to make sure no-one was listening.

The memory of last night’s moment in the barn with Betty came back into his mind with a vengeance, and the fries turned to sawdust in his mouth. “Yeah,” he said.

“For real, man. You’re five-and-0, last couple weeks. You got the momentum, bro. And that last race? When you edged him out, almost into the ditch?” he clapped his hands triumphantly. “Amazing!”

“Reggie – keep it down,” Jug hissed across the table. A middle-aged waitress standing at the coffee maker had turned her head in the direction of their table at the sound of the clap. “My record isn’t going to look so great when we get busted and my car’s impounded.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Reggie carelessly, though his voice was lower now, and he leaned conspiratorially across the table, his eyebrows disappearing into his hair. “Hey,” he said, “you gonna race him again tomorrow? I heard he wants a re-match.” He scoffed. “Cocky son-of-a-bitch.”

Jughead was trying to stir the foam that had stuck to the sides of his glass back into the milkshake with his straw. He threw it down into the cup and huffed. “Yeah, we’re racing tomorrow night.”

Reggie’s eyes lit up, but Jughead quickly realized he wasn’t just responding to the news of another race against Jughead’s arch-rival – instead, his gaze had flashed up to something behind Jughead, over by the entrance. “Speak of the devil,” Reggie muttered.

Jughead heard the bell over the diner door ring and didn’t need to turn around to know what he’d see – but he did it anyway. He always did have a flair for self-destruction.

Archie – tall, broad; his red hair close-cropped. With his strong brow, dark eyes, and mouth set in a constant self-assured smile, he always looked like he was patiently waiting for the world to fall at his feet, Jughead thought, and most of the time, it did exactly that. But the blue and gold letterman jacket, that quintessential sign of all-American respectability, was a handy cover for the truth about Archie: that, like Jughead, he was a major figure in Riverdale’s illegal underground drag racing scene.

Tucked under his arm was – Her. The Girl; the only one, in Jughead’s mind. A suburban teenage goddess in blue jeans. Golden halo gathered up into a ponytail, bronze skin tinged with pink at the cheeks, light emerald eyes sparkling, candy-apple-red lips pulled into an adoring smile directed at… well, someone else. Always someone else.

Individually, each projected an aura so powerful it was hard to look at them. Together like this, the effect was multiplied. Jughead blinked and looked away.

He imagined how he must look in comparison: a rangy figure in black hunched over a table, the features of its face sharp and ironic, eyes perennially tired; its wide, thin mouth twisted into a scowl. As the couple stepped together into a booth on the other side of the diner, Jughead felt his heart spiraling, crashing and burning into his stomach.

He turned back around to face Reggie, whose eyes were still following them with an oddly self-satisfied smile. Reggie whistled, low and quiet. “That’s some piece he’s got,” he observed crudely.

Jughead made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat and slid further down in his seat.

“I mean,” Reggie continued, relatively undaunted, “he may not have the car you do, but—” here he sucked air in through his teeth, leaving the rest of that sentence – mercifully, Jughead thought – unsaid. Then, his face suddenly serious, “how the fuck—” he asked, his voice so low he was swallowing every vowel—“do you get her to work for you?” His hands spread apart, then together again. “She’s with him.” He shook his head. “How the fuck can you even trust her with your car?”

“She’s… the best. Just the best.”

“But she could… cut your brake line, fuck up your transmission – anything.”

Jughead thought about saying something, but shrugged instead, and shoved more fries in his mouth. “She wouldn’t,” he declared.

“What if _he_ found out? That she was fixing—”

“He won’t,” Jughead replied tersely around a mouthful of food, meeting Reggie’s gaze intensely. “Believe me. Not unless _you_ tell him.”

“Bro,” Reggie said, leaning over again, his hands splayed on the table, his serpentine grin a clear indication that his thoughts had returned to that earlier place. “I heard she lets him—”

Jughead swallowed quickly, closed his eyes with a grimace and held his palm up, shaking his head. “No,” he said. “Reg, don’t. The less I know, the better.”


	2. Chapter 2

They walked out of the diner as they’d come in: stepping together in sync, his arm around her shoulder, pulling her tight against the side of his body. She was opening her mouth to ask what they should do next when she felt his posture change, his arm loosen, his pace speed up. Looking up, she saw raven hair, pearls, and heels that weren’t at all suited for the pitted pavement of Pop’s parking lot.

 _Veronica_. Her mouth went dry.

“Ronnie!” Archie called across, pitching his voice unusually low, and the girl looked up at him. Her face lit up in a pretty convincing performance of surprise.

“Archiekins!” she chirped, then, “Betty,” she added, condescending to look her way and smile for the briefest of instants. “Fancy meeting you here,” she said.

“Yeah,” Archie chuckled, everything in his bearing an awkward mix of flustered and swaggering. Just watching him like this made Betty’s stomach burn.

“Big date with your girl, huh?” Veronica observed, her voice oddly coy, her smile oddly knowing.

“Yep,” was Archie’s reply. He jammed both hands into his pockets.

For an uncomfortable minute, nobody said anything and everyone looked at each other in fleeting glances. Then, “well,” Veronica finally said, looking meaningfully at Archie, “I guess I’ll see you later.”

“Sure, yeah,” he said with a crooked smile.

The whole thing was ridiculous, Betty thought, her blood pressure ticking up. They weren’t subtle.

As they passed one another by, Veronica turned to her. “Betty, I’d love to have you over sometime. We can do your hair,” she crooned.

“Uh, thanks,” she replied flatly over her shoulder, hooking her arm through Archie’s.

\---

“Betty? Betty.”

She’d been silent the entire drive back to her house, studying the trees that lined the wide middle-class streets, the street signs, the facades of businesses. Now, they were parked on the street outside her house. She rolled her head left. “What?” she all but barked, looking at him for the first time since Pop’s.

His eyes were narrow, his mouth quirked into a cocky half-smile. “Something bothering you?” he asked.

Her face was made of stone.

“Cause, I dunno, seems like something’s maybe bothering you,” he observed, smile still firmly in place. The situation was abundantly clear to both of them. It had been for a while. But now it seemed he was going to taunt her with it.

She blinked, looked away. “Nope.”

“I sure hope you’re not going to be unfriendly to Veronica,” he said, resting his wrists on the steering wheel and looking out the front window. He spoke slowly, deliberately. “I mean… she was nice to you just now, offering to help you with your hair and stuff. She’s always been nice to you.” He scratched his nose with the sleeve of his jacket. “So you really should be nice to her, too. You know?”

She took a slow, deep breath. She counted the number of slats she could see on her parents’ picket fence from here. 16.

“Because…” he seemed to hesitate for a moment, then continued, “I’m not sure if you remember or not, but… that little girl you babysit – the Jones girl. Jellybean?" His voice was low, quiet. "I know things, right? About her dad.”

“Yeah, Archie,” she squirmed in her seat. Of course she remembered. How could she forget? But now he was tying that directly to – the other stuff, the stuff with Veronica. She felt a surge of fear shake her out of her sullen state. She couldn’t let him do anything to hurt Jellybean – or Jughead, though Archie had no idea about him and Betty – no matter what it cost her.

“It would be pretty bad if, you know, those things ever…” he picked at a hangnail. “Got out, I guess. Right?”

“Yeah,” she repeated. She was trapped. Utterly trapped. Her heart sank even as she realized she’d have to keep playing this role. “Sorry Arch. I guess I didn’t get enough sleep last night. Feeling a little cranky. I’ll get over it.”

“Good,” he said, smiling that all-American smile. He leaned over, and she met his lips with her own in as convincing a kiss as she could manage.

“Bye,” she said, opening the door with a tremulous hand.

“Call you later,” he replied, already starting the car.

\---

Revving the engine, eyeing his gauges, trying to feel himself into all of his limbs as his hands wrapped around the steering wheel and the knob of the gearshift, his feet working the pedals, Jughead wondered, very suddenly, what her lips would feel like, pressed against his own.

 _This is the kind of thing that gets you killed_ , he told himself. _One way or another. Blink at the wrong moment in a race like this, and you’re done._

Driving like he does – to be really good at it, anyway – you have to be reckless. About your car, about yourself, about anyone else. Yeah, technical skill is good to have. But all you _really_ need is to be reckless, to be willing to turn all your most basic instincts inside-out. You don’t run away from death, you seek her out. You blow in her ear. You run your hand up her thigh and under her skirt. You beg to be slapped.

 _But they’d be soft_ , he thinks anyway. He’s never kissed them. That’s not part of their – deal, arrangement, whatever you call something like this, that isn't a relationship, really, but has a hundred unspoken rules. _Soft_ , he thinks, _and warm, and—_

“Ready to go?” It was Her. She was at his window, bending down, strands of blonde hair blown by the wind across her face.

“Betty!” he choked, shocked that she’d risk being seen talking to him.

“Engine sounds good,” she noted, the hint of a smile visible only in her eyes. “Don’t ride the clutch.”

“Okay,” he said, his eyes wide.

She jogged around the back of his car to Archie’s, leaning through the window to kiss him – or so he assumed; he could only see her back – and then over to the side of the dusty country road, long rays of evening sun filtering through pine trees and sending shadows across her golden hair and skin. He glimpsed Archie, smug grin and all in the car beside him, then turned his eyes back to the road ahead.  

The route they would race was straightforward, but perilous. Start on a straightaway, curve to the right up a slight hill, cross the finish line on the other side of a narrow bridge – so narrow, only one car could cross it at a time.

Reggie sauntered over from the sidelines, his leather jacket hanging open to reveal a classic white t-shirt, smoothing his black hair behind one ear, looking – as usual – impossibly at ease and impressed with his own good-looks. It was a trait Jughead loved to ridicule, but on some level he admired Reggie’s absolute self-possession. Jughead was too cerebral, too cynical, too self-conscious to be really _cool_. Reggie stuck a hand through the window and Jughead struck it with his own, the two boys gripping each other’s fingers in a wordless display of support. “Jones,” Reggie finally said, his expression serious for a moment, “be safe.”

A dark curl falling over his eye, Jughead looked up at his friend with an impish blue gaze. “Not a chance,” he replied with a smirk.

Snickering and shaking his head as he backed away from the car, Reggie pointed both fingers at Jughead.

Then a girl with long pink hair walked up between the two roaring cars, carrying a bandanna. Her hand went up. It was time. Jughead took a deep breath.

As it came back down, both cars launched over the starting line, spraying dirt and rocks behind them as they tore up the road toward the turn. Jughead slammed his gearshift through its stages, his car edging ahead of Archie’s, his engine so powerful the wheels chirped and the car jerked forward each time he threw the stick into a new position. Although he kept his gaze as far ahead as he could, he could still see Archie’s car in his peripheral vision, and knew their front fenders were just about even. They were too close for Jughead to outmaneuver him completely at the corner.

Jughead had a slight disadvantage, he knew, being the outside car through the turn, so it would all come down to a high-stakes game of chicken once they reached the bridge.

As the cars pulled around and out of the turn, Archie was slightly in front. Jughead dropped his foot and gripped the wheel, pushing his engine to its limits as he jostled his car to the right, trying ever so slightly to edge his rival over and claim the whole road as the hazardous structure loomed up ahead.

It wasn’t working. Archie wasn’t blinking. The cars were still on either side of the centerline, neck-and-neck. A quick glance beyond the bridge told Jughead that at least there was no oncoming traffic. He tightened his grip and held his breath, every muscle in his body flexed and screaming as the car accelerated, surging past the point of no return. This was it: be the one to make it onto the bridge, or go flying off into the ditch. He was ready.

 _I don’t care_ , he thought. _Let’s do this, Archie. Nothing fucking matters anyway._

Closer and closer it came, stopping more and more impossible, until—

Archie was swerving hard to the right, the driver’s-side corner of his fender smashing through the railing, his car plunging off the side of the road and hurtling into the deep gulley below. And, with a violent jerk of the steering wheel, Jughead’s fender shattered the left railing as he just barely pushed his car up onto the bridge deck with all four tires touching the road.

His blood racing, fire coursing through his veins, Jughead screeched to a stop on the other side of the bridge, looking into his rear-view mirror to see a crowd of people running up the road towards the bridge – some stopping at the edge of the hill to peer over cautiously, others bolting down headlong toward the wreck.

He got out and walked back across the bridge. Voices called out to one another from the roadside and the riverbank, the sound carrying over the rushing water and reverberating off the rocks. A lazy plume of smoke wound its way up through the trees, but nothing black or boiling enough to suggest an actual fire. From the tone of the shouts he could hear, Archie was probably hurt, but not badly. Then, in the crowd gathering by the bridge, he picked out Betty, who was watching him, her eyes betraying not concern, or relief, but something else – something he couldn’t interpret. Finally, she looked down the hillside, seeming suddenly to realize the role she should be playing, and started picking her way carefully down toward the smashed car.

\---

There was no moon – the sky was inky black; the stars were brighter than usual, dotting the sky above the quiet trees. The engine’s loud purr winding down to a hum, Jughead pulled his car over to the side of the road, stopping under a lamp that cast a bluish-white glow around the blonde girl who stood, arms crossed, leaning against the post. Without a word, she got in, closed the door, and buckled her seatbelt. 

With Jughead at the wheel, the drive to the abandoned barn was a dizzying blend of smooth and brutally powerful as the car gripped the road around tight curves, shot over hills and rocketed out of valleys. Even this late at night, in darkness this profound, even after the intense race he’d driven in hours earlier, Jughead was calm – serene even – working his strong legs and muscular arms in perfectly coordinated sequences of movement to negotiate the country roads. He looked powerful, in control.

“How can you drive like that?” she asked, her voice so quiet he could barely hear it over the growl of the engine.

“Like this?” he replied, quickly glancing at her.

“No,” she said.

“Oh,” he replied, and seemed lost in thought for a minute, even as he pushed the car faster. “Like _that_.”

“Are you trying to kill yourself or something?”

He smiled, showing all his teeth in a way she rarely saw him do, but said nothing.

“Jug, I’m serious.”

“Am I trying to kill myself?”

She nodded.

“I’m not trying to kill myself, no. But—” he downshifted through a turn—“I sort of… stop trying _not_ to die, if that makes sense.”

“Jug—”

“You can’t worry too much about that stuff if you want to win,” he explained.

She sighed, struggling to find a response.

He shrugged. “It’s racing. You have to be reckless--”

“Well, there’s reckless, and then there’s—”

“And to be reckless,” he went on, “you have to stop caring.”

“Stop caring?”

“About anything: your car, yourself—” he stopped himself.

She was looking at him searchingly now, her green eyes big and round.

He looked over at her, his expression dark, his foot hovering over the gas pedal.

\--

The car rolled to a stop under the light that hung from the top gable of the barn, filling the inside of the car with a mellow orange glow. He turned the key and the engine’s rumble subsided abruptly, leaving them in what felt like utter silence. “Well, here we are,” he sighed.

Sensing her eyes on him, he turned his head, slate-gray eyes like lightning against his olive skin, his brow furrowed a little.

All of a sudden, she was crawling over the gearshift and into his lap, knees and elbows maneuvering awkwardly in the confined space, propelled by a desperate craving for his hands on her body. Planting her right foot beside his on the floor, she swung herself across and sat on his lap, her back to him. His hands came up to guide her hips. She leaned back against his chest, hemmed in between him and the steering wheel. His breath was raspy in her ear as her head dropped back against his shoulder. She turned her nose into his neck, spreading her legs as far apart as she could, and rolling her hips with a breathy moan.

His hands began to move, but there was something different about the way he was exploring her now: rather than scouring her flesh, eagerly, frantically, the way his hands usually did in their encounters, they caressed her stomach lightly, gathering her shirt up slowly; the pads of his fingers swept across the exposed skin above her collar with a feather-light touch; his palms pushed her breasts together as his mouth grazed her neck; his fingertips dragged back across to pinch her nipples through the layers of cotton and lace that covered them, a low noise rumbling in his chest; both hands slid over her stomach and then down between her legs, rubbing the heat of her core through her jeans before resurfacing onto her thighs in slow motion. He was intensifying her need for friction even as he satisfied it, making her squirm in painful ecstasy. Her skin was burning, her heart pounding in her ears.

She had an image of herself in that moment as a goddess, his touch an esoteric ritual of worship. He had total command over her body, his hands following a rhythm and a plan known only to him but somehow perfectly designed, she thought, to overwhelm her every sense, to obliterate her rational mind, to sublimate her physical form from a solid to a vapour. He had always been good at quenching her desire – _really_ good at it – but now he was stoking it, fuelling it, making it blaze out of control.

“Jug—oh—oh my God,” she breathed, barely able to form words, stretching her arms up behind her head for something to hold on to as pleasure sent her spiraling. She grasped handfuls of his soft, dark curls and pulled gently as his lips, teeth, and tongue on her ear threw shivers down her neck and across both arms. 

“Betty—” he said hoarsely, “God, you feel so good. I just—” he stammered, lowering his lips back to her neck rather than finish his thought, his hips pulsing involuntarily against hers, nudging his hardness into the space between her thighs. She could feel his arousal, and it flooded her veins with a fresh surge of adrenaline. She was suddenly all need, her body desperate to feel him, to pull him inside of her, to merge with his body.

“I need—” she whimpered, reaching down for his hand, but he was already there, pulling open the button and unzipping her jeans, slipping his fingers into her wetness. She made a soft, incoherent noise.

“You’re soaked,” he whispered in her ear.

“Oh— Juggie,” she murmured, shifting her thighs as his hand settled into her grooves and began to stroke, pleasure rippling outward from her center, “fuck– you get me so wet.”

He grunted in response, his excitement building, his fingers pulling at her supple flesh gently and rhythmically until her whole body thrummed, waves building on waves, moans finding their own way out of her throat.

“Jug—I want—ah—” she gasped, turning her face fully into his flushed cheek, her moistened lips dragging across it as she struggled to speak, “I want you inside me,” she groaned.

There was a furious fluttering in his stomach and, but for his resolve to keep stroking her until she came, he was so shocked that he almost froze. His already-open mouth widened, but nothing came out. Finally, “Betty—” he managed to breathe, her name a question. He turned his head to look at her face. What did that mean? Was she just chasing a thrill by talking like that, or—?

Without warning, her lips – loose, wet – sealed over his in an impulsive kiss. Surprised, he inhaled sharply through his nose. Her tongue slid into his mouth and he met it with his own, his eyes closing as he melted into her. Twisted as their bodies were in this position, the kiss was soft, all-consuming, indulgent. So this was what it was like to kiss Betty Cooper: like being a fly drowning in the nectar of a bright yellow flower. No matter how many times he’d fantasized about it, the reality was more intense, more annihilating, than he ever could have imagined.

Then her hand was on his, moving it lower, and she was tilting her hips up. He pushed one finger inside her, then another, sliding them in and out at the pace she set with the roll of her hips, both of them gasping between long, urgent kisses. His thumb circled her sweet spot, driving her over the edge. Her moans were getting louder and her muscles began to twitch. “More, Jug… I want—I want—” she panted, then lost control, keening into his mouth as he tightened his grip around her, holding her through the spasms that rocked her body from head to toe.

When the storm had passed and they sat slumped together, her body’s full weight draped across him, the air inside the car humid and close, questions clamored in his mind: what the fuck had just happened? What were they doing? What had she been asking for as she came undone? He kept all of it to himself for now. They never did much talking afterward, anyway.

Normally, he took his hands off her body right after. But they lingered on her skin this time, skimming lazily up and down her arms. She didn’t pull away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Hope it's at least somewhat satisfying for those of you who've been following along. I must admit, I don't *love* this fic -- I was trying out some stuff I don't normally play with here, so parts of this were kind of a stretch for me, I found writing it a bit of a chore at times, and I'm not really sure how well it came out. Sigh. But I did what I could with it, it's all done now, AND I can move on to something (hopefully) better/more fun :)
> 
> ALSO! If you had been seeking me out on tumblr at any point, good news: I've just stumbled my way into an account over there. Find me if you like, @georgiegirl8.

While the ease and speed of typing up stories made the laptop his go-to instrument, Jughead felt the need, every now and then, to scratch his ideas out on paper. The feel of the pen in his fingers and the paper under his hand; the slower pace he was forced to adopt in writing, giving his brain more time to turn over the ideas; the ability to work spatially, scrawling notes in the margins, drawing lines – all of these things made writing in his notebook a welcome change.

He was slouched down in the booth at Pop’s, empty milkshake glass and ketchup-smeared plate pushed across the table to make room for the ( _bottomless, thank God_ ) cup of coffee, facing the back wall, chewing over a particularly difficult paragraph, when he heard the door open, followed by Archie’s voice.

This time, he didn’t turn around, vowing to keep his mind on his work instead of torture himself. Seeing them together was always a gut-punch, a knock that would send him reeling for hours. _Eyes on the page_.

But Archie wasn’t with her – not this time. No, the other voice was male. Who it was Jughead couldn’t say for sure – probably some other toxic football jerk, based on the distasteful laughing and general vibe he could pick up on. It wasn’t worth knowing their names, so Jughead never tried. He gulped more coffee and slumped further in the booth, trying his best to block out the voices. Why couldn’t he have brought his headphones this time?

Once settled in their seats, somewhere behind him, they lowered their tone. _Good_ , Jughead thought. Except—individual syllables were still popping up over the ambient noise of the diner and into his ears. “She,” in particular, caught his attention. Almost against his own will, Jughead tuned into the conversation, quickly realizing why their voices had dropped so low.

“—so I went over after her parents had gone out, right? And let’s just say we, uh, you know, christened the pool table—” Archie was relating – cue burst of raucous laughter.

 _Pool table? Does Betty have a pool table?_ He’d never been inside her house.

“—but then, we had forgotten that the butler would still be home—” and as Archie and the other guy were once again incapacitated with hilarity, it began to dawn on Jughead what – or more properly, who – the redhead was boasting about.

Veronica.

He was suddenly torn in three directions. Part of him hated Archie for treating Betty this way. Part of him was glad she had a real, concrete reason to leave him. Part of him shrank inwardly with guilt at the thought that she was cheating on Archie, too – with him.

“Dude, that’s awesome,” the other guy was saying. “But fuck, if Betty ever found out—”

There was a moment of silence, and Jughead couldn’t imagine what expression or gesture Archie might be making. But then his voice came back, even more quiet than before: “she fucking knows, man” – and somehow the tone wasn’t sheepish. _What the?_ — “I mean, she’s great cover for this thing I’ve got with Veronica. Her dad totally fuckin’ hates me and Veronica doesn’t want to piss him off and lose her allowance. So if I’m already seeing someone—”

“Wow, buddy.” The other guy at least had the decency to sound vaguely shocked.

“Plus, she’s a good girl, right? Honor roll, cheerleading, all that. She makes me look like a good guy. I’ve gotta keep up my reputation. That way, I can keep doing all the fun stuff I actually want to do and nobody can give me shit about it,” he went on.

“But—okay, wait. I get why you’re still with her. But if she knows, why is she still—”

“Still with me?” He chuckled to himself. “Well, let’s just say… I know stuff.”

“Jesus, Arch.”

“Stuff she doesn’t want me talking about, so—”

And in that instant, Jughead knew exactly where the clichéd phrase “seeing red” came from. Closing his eyes against the tidal wave of rage that swept through his entire body, he literally – brightly and vividly – saw red. His arms and legs had become blowtorches, and he felt his whole being narrowing, sharpening itself into a point whose sole purpose was to destroy Archie.

Except…. Rational thoughts kept bubbling up through the sea of rage inside his brain.

The thoughts showed him cool logic at first: _if I go over there, if I put my fist through his smug face,_ he realized, _Archie will definitely use whatever he’s got over Betty to hurt her. I can’t be the one who triggers that. It’s not my place to intervene. I don’t want to put her in an even worse position_.

As he sat seething in silence, the thoughts began to change – drifting, like smoke, into a slightly different pattern: _I need to keep her safe; I need to protect her; I would do anything for her._

_I want to take her hand and start running until we’re a hundred miles away from all of this and never look back._

_I need to get out of here._

He closed the notebook and jammed it into his school bag along with the pen. He threw the last of the coffee down his throat. He tossed some bills onto the table. Wearily, he stood and turned to leave. To his surprise, he immediately made eye contact with Archie, whose face was still marred by a black eye and covered in scratches, a bandage – the kind you’d use when you probably needed stitches but didn’t want to answer questions at the hospital – pasted over a corner of his forehead.

Jughead looked away towards the door and put one foot in front of the other, just trying to get out of Pop’s and away from Archie and whoever his friend was – and the air in here, which felt toxic and choking. He could feel Archie’s eyes, still on him. He was turning towards him, leaning out of the booth, grabbing for his arm.

“Well,” said Archie, his voice loud, seeming to want to put on a show for the other patrons, “look who it is! The king of Riverdale, right?” he laughed.

Jughead snatched his arm out of Archie’s grasp. “Sorry that plunge down a ravine disabled your inside voice, dude,” he replied under his breath, his eyes dull, his mouth tight.

_Don’t engage._

Archie’s smile was wide and wild. “Oh, nothing wrong with me, man. And my car’s almost back on the road, too. But you—” he pointed a finger aggressively at Jughead’s chest. “You’re fucked, man.”

“Is that so. Well, nice talking to you, Archie; take care, now,” he replied, trying to brush past.

“Actually, I think you’re the one who needs to _take care_ , Jughead,” he heard Archie say as he laid his hand on the door.

“Is that a threat?”

Archie shook his head with an obnoxious knowing smile. “I’m not the one you should be worried about,” he said. “I think you know what I’m talking about.”

Jughead exhaled noisily and turned, stalking back to Archie’s table. “The fuck are you talking about?” he hissed, getting right up in Archie’s face.

“I’m sorry, I was mistaken earlier. You’re not the king of Riverdale, are you?” said Archie, “more like the Serpent Prince. Am I right?”

“Archie—”

“But we both know who the king is. And whether he’s aware of it or not, thanks to my connections in Lodge Industries, I’ve scored some very interesting video footage of him doing – well, let’s just say the video would be really interesting for certain people in Riverdale. Gee,” he laughed, “I hope they never see it.”

“Are you fucking serious with all this bullshit?”

“A little sister at home, Jug, I’m not sure you want to push your luck here. Or, maybe you do, I don’t know. I guess Jellybean is fucking lucky she’s got Betty looking out for her, at least.”

“Betty?”

Archie’s response was just a slow smile, but in that instant everything clicked into place for Jughead.

 _My dad? Jellybean?_ That’s _what he’s holding over Betty, using it to humiliate her, control her?_

Yeah, he was insanely protective over his sister. And yeah, thanks to FP’s constant slow-motion self-destruction, their family was always walking a tightrope over the abyss, FP himself always just a breath away from prison – or worse. Jughead realized he came home every day expecting his father to be gone. FP would have to pay for what he’d done at some point, he knew that.

And then Jughead and his sister and their mom would have to figure out their own way forward.

But that had nothing to do with Betty – and he wasn’t about to let her pay for his family’s problems. Not anymore.

Something electric was gathering in him as the pieces came together in his mind, and it was buzzing in his arms. He felt lightheaded and loose, like he’d started floating. He looked at Archie’s face, freckled and self-satisfied. His heart sped up, even as time seemed to slow down. He shuffled his left foot forward, squared his shoulders, and swung his fist into Archie’s nose with the full weight of all his frustrated hopes.

\---

The headache had lasted for five days; the ringing in his ears, four; the nosebleed, off-and-on, for three; and there were one or two cuts – the one over his eyebrow, in particular – he was pretty sure would leave a permanent scar.

But somehow, a week later, Jughead felt more at peace than he had in a really long time. Physical pain, however acute, and scars, however permanent, were a price he had willingly, gladly paid for the small chance that Betty could get out from under Archie’s grasp.

His own family might be more vulnerable now than before, especially now that all of Riverdale had heard about the fight, as well as the reasons for it – but really, they had always been living at the mercy of FP and his mistakes. If worse came to worst, he thought, he would figure things out for himself and his sister.

It was midnight, the night before another race – the first since the bridge – and he was alone in the barn, trying to tune the engine up himself.

Without Betty.

He hadn’t talked to her, hadn’t been able to figure out what to say to her yet. He had done what he could for her in fighting Archie. God knows what she knew or didn’t know about the fight – what Archie would tell her, what people would say, what she would think about it all. But he knew one thing: he didn’t want her to feel like she owed him anything. Ever. When you got right down to it, the fight, the blackmail, was all just part of Jughead’s ongoing rivalry with Archie. Betty had been a hostage to it.

But the word around town was – she wasn’t leaving him. They were still together, as far as anyone could tell. Although he’d never have admitted it, Jughead had definitely allowed a fantasy of Betty dumping Archie, publicly and spectacularly, to play out in his imagination. And why shouldn’t she?

But she hadn’t. _Her choice_ , he eventually figured, as painful as that was.

“Thought I might find you here,” said a soft voice from the doorway. He jumped, almost hitting his head on the hood of the car and swung around to look up, startled at her sudden appearance here in the middle of the night. She leaned on the old wood of the doorframe, her lithe body dressed for the heat in a tank top and light knee-length skirt that barely skimmed her kneecaps.

“Betty,” he breathed, his eyes darting all over her face for some sign of how she was now, after—

“Need some help?” she offered with the merest of smiles in her eyes.

“Yeah,” he replied, still trying to calm his heartrate, “sure.”

She stepped over, tightening her ponytail, held her hand out for the tool Jughead held, stuck her head under the hood and got to work. Jughead couldn’t help but stare at her and wonder.

“What’s on your mind, Jug?” she asked, clearly feeling his eyes on her.

“I just…” he thought about saying nothing. He thought about lying to her. But it was late, and dark, he’d had the daylights beaten out of him a week ago, and he realized he had zero fucks left to give. “I mean… Archie—”

“Yeah,” she scoffed mirthlessly. “I heard about your little—” she paused to yank on some uncooperative part – “set-to,” she said, deflecting with a euphemism.

“You did,” he said.

“I did.”

He sighed. There was an uncomfortable silence and he wondered whether he should ask her something, explain himself, or just stop talking forever.

“And I know what it was about, too,” she added, seeming to read his mind.

Was she upset? Glad? Her tone was unreadable and as much as he wanted to give her whatever space she needed right now, he was dying to know what was going on inside her head.

So “okay,” was all he said.

She seemed to wrestle, for a few moments, with the same piece of the engine she’d been pulling on earlier, and he thought maybe that was it – that was all they’d ever say on the matter. It seemed like a distinct possibility.

But then she pulled herself away from the engine and looked over at him. Their eyes locked briefly before she looked down. “I need to tell you—” she hesitated. “Thank you,” she said.

“Betty, you don’t--” he replied.

“Jug, just listen,” she pleaded, putting down the tool. “I’m sorry about what Archie did. And I’m sorry about your dad.”

“I just couldn’t let him do that to you. Especially if it’s my dad’s fuck-ups that he’s holding over you. His bullshit should be the least of your problems. And I can take care of my sister.”

Some thought flashed across her face and disappeared, like a shadow. “Jug, I’m sorry,” she said.

“Forget it,” he told her, and meant it.

“I won’t,” she said, coming right over to him, setting both hands on his chest. “You did that… for me,” she said, her voice now betraying some emotion, lifting a hand to brush the tips of her fingers gently over the gash on his eyebrow, which was scabby now and ringed with bruises in every shade of purple and yellow.

He gazed into her liquid eyes and felt the blood pound in his head, allowing her gratitude to wash over him and knowing his face was an open book in this moment. The look in her eyes told him she could read him, that she knew. He nodded slowly, afraid to speak, almost afraid to breathe in case he disturbed whatever mysterious quiet web had begun weaving itself between them.

Her lashes fluttered down as her hands came back to his chest. “Well,” she said, her voice trembling and barely audible, and she swallowed. “I did it for you, too,” she said. She lifted her eyes back to his, cautiously, it seemed, looking for… something.

Without allowing his overactive neurotic brain even one millisecond to second-guess his next impulse, he cupped her face in his hands, turning it up to his own like a flower, bowed his head, and pressed his lips to hers, softly but insistently. She responded immediately, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, opening her lips. Her tongue slipped into his mouth; her fingers curled into his hair; he captured her bottom lip between his teeth and gently pulled; his hands roamed every inch of her that he could reach. He was falling, weightless, into her.

Catching his breath, he rested his forehead on hers, holding her body close. He closed his eyes. Not wanting to know, but needing to know, “Archie—” he whispered.

She shook her head.

He crushed his lips to hers, his skin burning to touch hers. They came together in a frenzy of mouths on lips, cheeks, necks, chests; of hands grabbing flesh and pulling at clothing; needing each other desperately and urgently.

The headlong desire – the raw physical thirst – was something they had known with one another for a long time. But the gentleness, the tenderness, the warmth in every glance, every touch, every whispered word – was new, and it took their breath away.   

He felt her fingers fiddle at the button of his jeans and broke the kiss, looking at her with a subtle quirk of his eyebrow, an unspoken, “are you sure?” Her smile, powerful, desiring, as her lips came back to find his was assurance enough. 

And then he felt her hand reach into his boxers to pull him out and his mind went blank except for a cloud of sensations and emotions that organized itself into a resounding YES inside his head. He stumbled backward to lean against the side of the car as she stroked his length with a firm and dextrous hand. He sucked in a breath and blew it out, lost in ecstasy but quickly realizing he needed to get ahold of himself.

“Betty, Betty—” he laid a hand on her arm to slow her movements.

“Too much?”

“Too good,” he said.

“Good,” she replied with a wide smile, placing a quick kiss on his lips before moving him aside so she could open the back door of the car.

“Betty, what are you—”

“Get in, Jughead.”

“Oh,” he sputtered, hurrying to fold himself into the space, his mind lagging well behind his body.

Before he could really figure out what was happening, she was crawling in after him, onto his lap, pressing him between her thighs, her hands all over him, pulling up his shirt as their lips came back together. Her knees digging into the rough upholstery as she rolled her heat over his painfully hard arousal, drawing a strangled moan from his throat. Only the damp, thin layer of her cotton panties was separating them now. She pulled her lips away from him, her gaze dark and intense as she grasped him with one hand and pushed the panties out of the way with impatient fingers before sinking down onto him, taking him all in at once, her mouth falling open at the sensation of him sliding into her. Uttering a curse, he silently willed her to start moving before he exploded into a million tiny pieces in the back of his car. And then, she did – slowly at first, rocking her hips up and back; then, as her inhibitions fell away, bouncing, her hands on his shoulders to steady herself, her head thrown back, her moans breathy and high, a flush creeping up from the top of her shirt and onto her cheeks, her lips bright red, swollen from his kisses. As he watched her, in a kind of awe, she raised her head and her eyes locked with his own.

Seeing her this way was—well, he didn’t have words for it. And to think that _he_ had done this – that she was so flushed, so breathless, so wet ( _so very wet_ ) – because of him almost sent him over the edge. Impulsively, he pulled the elastic out of her ponytail and watched her blonde waves fan out around her shoulders, framing her face in the half-light of the backseat as her body rose and fell. Wrapping one arm around her waist and throwing the other up against the window, his primal instincts took over as he thrust up into her wildly, roughly, making her toss her head back again with a strangled scream, her fingernails digging into his forearms.

It was coiling in his belly, the tension building, as he felt her climax squeeze her body in its exultant grip, and was surprised to hear himself cry out hoarsely as he came a moment later, pushing himself deeply into her. She collapsed into him, panting and laughing, and let him run his fingers up and down her back, tracing his name into her skin.

\---

As the rising sun tinged the sky with the first faint glow of orange, way off in the distance, she inched her hand over the half-rolled-down window and out into the open air, tilting it up into the wind and feeling her fingers take flight as the car swooped around a bend and crested a hill. Long tendrils of hair blew around her face. A serene smile settled on her lips.

“How much father to the coast?” she asked, looking over at Jughead in the driver’s seat, hugging her knees to her chest.

Keeping his gaze on the road, his smile so wide it crinkled the corners of his eyes, “No clue,” he replied.

She turned her eyes forward too. “Perfect,” she said.


End file.
